Fresh 15mm turtle sculpts

 I've made about 15 practice owl heads for my twanax conversion, but still have to cut the head off before mounting, if I finally decide on which one to use. In the meantime I've been looking at frogmen for my swamp denizens and there are nice ones in production that I can purchase, so I turned my attention to sculpting turtles.

These are  giant snapping turtles that I have done in Fimo. I used that, instead of Aves, because I wanted to use a 2 part mold for the shell and body so I could have some uniformity. I haven't opened up my resin for casting yet, so the Fimo was the best option for quick repros with the 2 part mold. They have been primered and are awaiting some paint. 

I'm using the 2 part mold as kind of a press mold right now. Pack the Fimo in both sides then squish, pop out the repro, and do some trim work.

The shell and underbody are the same but I can add legs, heads, and tails in different positions. I did a club for the first one, just playing around with the hands, but I need to make some others with some more interesting weapons.

I will do a few more and try to refine the eyes and add some different weapons.

As I progress I should probably add more details to the shell and body. I will be studying these as I make them to see what I need to do to repro them in lead or pewter with a small centrifugal mold system.

I think I need some swamp terrain for pictures too. 

Completed minis and markers

 Still in sculpting and casting mode, but got some more painting done this weekend. A Splintered Light cave troll and a Blue Moon Twanax. 

I did the cave troll in the same color as the other trolls in the group. This mini is a larger in size, has a weapon and is clothed, compared to the other trolls which are straight from the cover of the first Monster Manual. 

I painted the twanax sepia with a darkened vermillion for the eyes. 

I had plans to sculpt a Haystack creature, but I may try painting one of the Twanax in that color scheme and then just sculpt a plain haystack in a similar texture. 

The troll head and the vampirian head and hands corpse marker were done with sculpey on sculpey molds, which are not really all that effective, but I had not opened up the Equinox yet so I gave it a shot for fun. The lizard man marker was done with the Equinox silicone mold - better results and should be able to get numerous repros from it.

A 15mm fighter with them to show scale. The markers are pretty big, but all 3 of these types of monsters are larger than mansize.

Priorities for sculpting and casting in the coming days, are an owl head, a pumpkin head, and finishing up my 3rd plague doctor. 

15mm Heekin Ogre

 I've been making some molds and casts for corpse markers, mainly to try out the mold product, since I've never used it before. I also sculpted a bit, but did manage to get some painting done and finished off this Heekin miniature. It's an ogre from the 15mm fantasy line. A lot different from some of the ogre minis I have, as he is plainly dressed (no armor) and just a simple club. Good to have some variety. 

He was painted with golden hi flow acrylics.

Not much bling on this guy, but he's got some guns!

15mm vampires and other colorless creatures

 I did not get as many miniatures done in Oct as I had planned, but I will try to keep the Halloween spirit going and proceed with taking on the undead lead. I spent the minimal time I had available this weekend preshading some figs. These are Blue Moon vampire set. Great detail and character - I need to really think about what color schemes will work for these. 

There are a few more in the set that I still have to preshade. 

I also worked on some random figures I had lined up. A cave troll from Splintered Light, a vampirian from Battle Valor, and a Wyvern from Ral Partha. The vampirian still needs hands and weapons attached. Although the Ral Partha is stamped 1978 I believe it may be a more recent cast. I will have to do a bit of research. 

The 3 smaller ratmen from Splintered Light Rat personalities set. These are loaded up with small details which is usually not my preference on 15mm minis but I will see how they turn out. 

A Heekin Casting dwarf and Splintered Light badger. The badger is an Out of the Darkness special for only $1. I plan on using it as a 15mm tasmanian devil for my games. 

These lizard men are from Battle Valor. I may use the shields that come with them, but have been having thoughts of sculping some turtle shell shields. I tried a different technique for preshading them, skipping the drybrush for a wash. I don't think it works as well. 

The next minis are just the best thing I've come across in awhile. These are the Twanax horde from Blue Moon aliens category. I never would have looked in there, but I saw one of them on a blog post and thought it may work for D&D, so checked it out. Glad I did as this is really a fine set of minis. Six to a pack with 6 different poses. Slightly larger than a standard human figure, and with menacing poses these will go great in a dungeon or outdoor adventure. 

The first obvious thought is this would make a fine yeti, or some type of were creature, but I have 2 of them set aside with plans to modify them. One I want to make into an Owl bear and the other into a Bugbear similar to the 25mm Archive bugbear in the Dungeon Nasties collection. 

I will need to make some cuts on the face and do some sculpting, but I'm hoping it will be minor work to get the effect. In the mean time I need to get some color on all of these. Maybe I'll go watch Pleasantville for some inspiration. Ha!